Road Warrior: Paterson streets may really need $37M patching up

Long after the last sliver of ice has melted, winter potholes and bumpy roadways continue to send cars to repair shops in dozens of North Jersey towns this summer, but few if any of these locations rival the damage that has been playing out across the streets of Paterson.

The exact toll is almost impossible to calculate, but Mayor Joey Torres caused jaws to drop last week when — on his first day back in office after a four-year hiatus — he suggested borrowing an amount that just might fix what several years of neglect had wrought: $37 million.

For perspective, that's the single-biggest one-year allocation ever made in the Silk City's long history. It's more than 20 times bigger than the bill that property owners usually contribute for annual street repair. So big that if the City Council approves it later this month, it would boost Paterson's nearly $100 million debt 35 percent.

"It does seem somewhat exorbitant," said Councilman Andrew Sayegh, who finished second to Torres in the May non-partisan election.

But the mayor didn't blink. Polling and house-to-house campaigning had shown him that potholes ranked with crime among the biggest issues troubling voters, perhaps even more than crime.

"Lots of people worry about becoming the victim of a crime," he said in an interview last week, "but everybody worries about the conditions of the roads — not only the people who live here, but the people who work and play here, too."

Pollsters and campaigners hardly needed to question voters to reach that conclusion. It takes only a slow ride through the city's 8.2 square miles to recognize that Paterson has become Pothole City. Nearly all its neighborhoods draw complaints — from Stoney Road at the Woodland Park border to the Riverside section around Third Avenue and McLean Boulevard near the Hawthorne border.

Almost everyone has a story.

Sayegh's car hit a big rut and blew out a tire on the way to his 3rd Avenue headquarters on election day. The aluminum tire rims on the BMW that Torres drives now sport "nice dents because of a deep pothole on McBride Avenue," said the mayor. Passaic County Freeholder Terry Duffy, a River Street restaurateur, said "customers complain all the time" about untended craters. Former Paterson Mayor Lawrence Kramer said his car lost two tires in a recent blowout for a $607 loss.

"Fifth Avenue is a war zone," said Bellizzi as he recounted several close calls with oncoming traffic. "I have to ride all over the road to avoid the potholes, and so do vehicles in the oncoming lane."

Paterson isn't the only place that brings pothole complaints to this column. Frequent causes for reader alarm are Starke Road in Carlstadt, Pascack Road in Washington Township, the entrance ramp from the George Washington Bridge to the Palisades Interstate Parkway, Route 3 east at West Side Avenue in North Bergen, and especially the local streets and ramps around the Paramus interchange of Routes 4, 17 and the Garden State Parkway.

But no other North Jersey municipality seems to have such a concentration of craters and no other mayor has taken a financial stand that reaches eight figures for as many as 170 different primary roads. Moreover — almost unbelievably — Torres insists the impact on taxpayers will be minimal.

"We'll use money normally spent on annual street repair to pay the debt service on the bonds," he said, adding that interest rates are currently low — "conservatively in the 2 percent range" for a 15- or 20-year period. Street repair costs from city tax payments — about $1.5 million — is already built into the budget, he said.

Under this plan, it would take a year or more to fully pave more than half Paterson's roads — not simply plug them to fill holes. This schedule depends on the weather and coordination with other agencies, like the Passaic County Public Works Department and the state Department of Transportation, which also maintain many city roadways. Several contractors will be chosen to speed the project along before winter.

State funds, generally in the $500,000 range, would continue to be used to finance day-to-day repairs, and the city will aggressively continue to seek additional road aid from Trenton, Torres said. Secondary roads would get their share of the funding, too, the mayor added.

But some byways, including badly damaged roads like West Railway Avenue, can't be funded this way, he acknowledged, mainly because serious underground utility flaws and drainage problems would siphon too much money away from the main goal of fixing as many streets as possible.

"We'll have to find other measures to fix them," he said.

The plan also includes a five-year moratorium on underground connections for roads paved under this plan.

"Except for emergencies, we don't want utilities digging up recently paved streets," Torres said. Contractors will also be required to post bonds to ensure that they correct work that does not hold up for at least five years — a frequent problem in many municipalities.

Calling this street repair strategy "an investment" to keep the county seat accessible and convenient for residents, visitors and workers, the mayor insisted that borrowing $37 million would still keep Paterson's fiscal house well within its nearly $252 million debt limit. Citing safety and liability issues, Torres also noted that although municipalities are generally protected by law from damage claims for faulty road conditions, this protection does not forgive negligence.